USA > Illinois > Shelby County > Combined history of Shelby and Moultrie Counties, Illinois : with illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 54
USA > Illinois > Moultrie County > Combined history of Shelby and Moultrie Counties, Illinois : with illustrations descriptive of their scenery and biographical sketches of some of their prominent men and pioneers > Part 54
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PERRY B. GILLHAM.
THIS gentleman, one of the well-known business inen of Sullivan, was born in Jersey county, Illinois, on the 31st of October, 1839. His grandfather, John D. Gillham, emigrated from North Carolina to Illinois in the year 1812, and settled in Madison county. Allen Gillham, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Madison county on the 17th of May. 1816. He married Nancy Murphy, who was originally descended from an Irish family, though she possessed more English than Irish blood in her veins. She was born iu Vir- ginia, and came to this state when a small girl. Her father was one of the early settlers of Madison county. Mr. Gillham's father and grandfather settled about 1838, on what is still known as Gillham's mound, in the southern part of Jersey county. A large family of Gillhams is still living in that part of the state. His father died near Sullivan in 1876, and his mother is still living.
196
HISTORY OF SHELBY AND MOULTRIE COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
Mr. Gillham was in his sixteenth year when the family moved to Moultrie county, in the spring of 1855, and settled on a farm two miles north west of Sullivan. He attended school in Jersey county, and afterward in Sullivan till he was nineteen years of age, and then became a student in the Mt. Zion Academy, in Ma- con county, then under the charge of Prof. A. J. McGlumphy. He attended this institution three years, and then left school to enter the army, the war of the rebellion then being in progress. In Au- gust, 1862, he enlisted as a private in Co. C, of the one hundred and twenty-sixth Illinois regiment. 'The regiment was mustered in at Camp Terry, Mattoon ; from there proceeded to Alton, and then by boat down the Mississippi. Col. Jonathan Richmond commanded the regiment. The engagement at the capture of Humboldt, Ten- nessee, was the first serious test of the mettle of the regiment. After that came the fight at La Grange, and then for three weeks the regiment was under fire at the siege of Vicksburg ; took part after- ward in several minor engagements, and then participated in the capture of Little Rock. At Jackson, Tennessee, he was made com- missary sergeant and placed on duty in the commissary department of the regiment. At Duvall's Bluff, Arkansas, he was transferred by special order for duty as chief clerk at Gen. Kimball's head- quarters, at Little Rock. Gen. Kimball occupied the governor's residence as head-quarters, and while there Mr. Gillham had a pleasant position, but he was called back to the regiment by a pro- motion as first lieutenant, and served in that capacity till the close of the war. At Pine Bluff he was placed on detached service, and with a hundred inen under his command, had charge of a battery. He was discharged at Pine Bluff, aud mustered out at Camp Butler, Springfield, in August, 1865.
He returned to Moultrie county, and on the 26th of September, 1865, married Belle Pugh, daughter of Gen. I. C. Pugli, who served as a captain in the Black Hawk war, entered the war of the rebellion, was promoted from captain to colonel of the forty-first Illinois regi- ment, and then to Brigadier General. He served most of the time with Sherman. He died at Decatur in 1874. Mrs. Gillham was born in Macon county. After engaging in farming he entered the storc of C. L. Roane, at Sullivan. For a year he carried on the mercantile business with Ebon T. Cox, and was afterward in part- nership with Seymour Brightman. In 1870 he erected his present buildings and began the livery and stock business, in which, with the exception of three years, during which he was farming, he has since been engaged. He is favorably known to the people of Moul- trie county as a business inan. He has one child. He has always been a Republican in politics, casting his first presidential vote for Lincoln, in 1860. He began life with no resources except his own energy, and now stands well among the progressive business inen of Moultrie county.
GEORGE W. VAUGHAN.
THIS gentleman, one of the leading farmers of Sullivan town- ship, was born in Shelby county, three miles and a half east of Shelbyville, on the eleventh of September, 1833. The Vaughan family is of German descent. His grandfather was a resident of Virginia, and his father, James W. Vaughan, was born in that state in the year 1805. The latter, in the year 1814, when only nine years of age, accompanied his mother and the rest of the family (his father having died in Virginia) to Rutherford county, Tenn. After living fourteen years in that state they came to Illinois, set- tling in Shelby county in 1829. James W. Vaughan was a black- smith and gunsmith by trade, and carried on that occupation at Shelbyville. He also for a short time kept a hotel. When he
located at Shelbyville the place contained only a few houses. He afterward moved east of the town, and it was there that the birth of the subject of this sketch occurred. The first eight years of his life were spent in the same neighborhood, which was new and com- paratively unsettled. In 1842 his father moved with the family to Whitley creek, along which settlements had been made a few years previous. This location is in the present limits of Moultrie county, but was then still in Shelby.
Mr. Vaughan had attended school about nine months east of Shelbyville and afterward went to school as he had opportunity on Whitley creek. The boys of that period had poor educational ad- vantages. The schools were held at irregular intervals in the win- ter season in log school-houses. His father was a man who believed in raising his children to habits of industry, and they carried on the farm while their father worked at his trade. The family moved to Sullivan in December, 1849; Mr. Vaughan was then sixteen. For his education he is principally indebted to the school facilities he enjoyed after coming to Sullivan. The spring after he was twenty- one he secured a school in Lovington township and taught one term. His marriage occurred on the first of March, 1855, to Beu- lah A. Rhodes, daughter of Silas P. Rhodes and Nancy Pugh. Her grandfather was Thomas Pugh. The Pugh family were among the early pioneer settlers of Shelby county, and Mrs. Vaughan's uncles are among the oldest citizens now residing in that county. After his marriage, Mr. Vaughan went to farming on section three of township thirteen, range five, a short distance N. W. of Sullivan, where he has been living ever since. He began with one hundred and sixty acres of land. He has been among the enterprising and progressive farmers of Moultrie county, and his farm now consists of between five and six hundred acres. His buildings and farm improvements are of a substantial character, and they appear in an illustration on another page. He has been engaged in general farming and stock-raising. The death of his wife took place on the thirtieth of December, 1880. For over twenty-five years she had been his faithful and devoted companion, and her death was la- mented by a large circle of her friends and acquaintances outside of her immediate family. She had been in ill-health for two or three years previous to her death, and died of consumption. For twenty- four years she had been a consistent member of the Baptist Church, and in her private walk and conversation adorned her profession of Christianity. She was benevolent and charitable in her disposition, kind in her domestic relations, an affectionate wife and a devoted mother. She had many admirable traits of character, and to her ready assistance is owing much of her husband's success in life. She left a memory fragrant with good deeds. Of the eleven chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Vaughan only three are now living : Arthur L. Vaughan, Olivia C., wife of S. W. Corley, of Morton, Tazewell county, and Ida F. Vaughan.
His political opinions have always connected him with the demo- cratic party. He has voted the democratic ticket from the year 1856, when he supported Buchanan for the presidency. During the war of the rebellion he served eighteen months (from August, 1862, to February, 1864,) in Co. C, of the One Hundred and Twenty- sixth Illinois Regiment He held a commission as second lieuten- ant. He served in Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. He was honorably discharged by order of the war department on account of disability. He is a man in whom the community has had entire confidence, and he has filled several representative positions. He became a member of the board of supervisors in September, 1880, and has since been chairman of the board. As a farmer, he is ac- tive and progressive, and has materially contributed to the advance- ment of the agricultural interests of Moultric county. He has been
RESIDENCE & STOCK FARM OF GEORGE W. VAUGHAN, SULLIVAN TP. ONE MILE NORTH WEST OF SULLIVAN, ILL.
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HISTORY OF SHELBY AND MOULTRIE COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
an officer of the Moultrie County Agricultural Board from its or- ganization under that name. For ten years he has been secretary, and in that capacity his efforts have been of no little service in se- curing the successful working of the society. He was one of the organizers of the Moultrie County Co-operative Association, of which from the beginning he has acted as secretary. Since the age of fifteen he has been connected with the Baptist Church. He is a member of Mt. Zion Church of that denomination in Coles county. He has been actively interested in Sunday-school matters, and has been identified with Sunday-school work in Moultrie county for inany years. He has been connected with the Moultrie County Sunday-school Association, either as secretary, vice-president or president, for the last ten years, and is now its president. His name fitly appears in these pages as one of the representative agriculturists of Moultrie county.
AARON MILEY,
WHO for fourteen years has held the office of post-master at Sulli- van, was born near Newark, Licking county, Ohio, September 14, 1843. His parents were natives of Virginia. His father's name was Jacob Miley. His mother, Susan Smith, belonged to a long- lived family, both her parents dying when past the age of eighty. The subject of this sketch was the youngest of seven children, and the only one of the three brothers now living. He was raised near Newark, Ohio. Obtaining his elementary education in the common schools, at the age of twenty he entered the Dennison University at Granville, Ohio. After having been engaged in different occupa- tions in Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania, he came to Illinois in 1865, and located at Sullivan. For two winters he taught school in Moultrie county. In 1867, he took charge of the post-office at Sullivan, first acting as deputy and in January, 1868, receiving a commission as pcst-master. He has since retained this position under the successive Republican administrations of Grant and Hayes. January 1, 1881, the Sullivan office was placed in the list of offices subject to Presidential appointment. He has made a com- petent and faithful official, and has discharged the duties of the office with promptness and regularity. His marriage took place on the 1st of May, 1873, to Miss Lum Beveridge, of Highland county, Ohio. By this marriage he has two children. He has always been a Republican in politics. His first vote for President was cast for Abraham Lincoln, in 1864, and he has been a member of the Re- publican party from that time to the present.
D. F. STEARNS,
THE present efficient superintendent of schools of Moultrie county, was born in Genesec county, New York, in 1838. His father was a tiller of the soil, and he also was trained a practical farmer. He received a liberal education at the rural district schools, and for a time attended Carey Collegiate Seminary. At the age of eighteen he taught school in Michigan, and one year later went to sea, where he served as a sailor for two years; he doubled Cape Horn twice, crossed the Equator four times, was in Alaska. Sandwich Islands, Chili, South Sea Islands, etc. After re- turning from sea he attended Hillsdale College, at Hillsdale, "Micli- gan. At this place, in 1862, he married Miss Fannie M. Brockway, by which union there have been three children born, two of whom are living (boys)-Allen T. and Charley. In 1863-4 he engaged in mercantile business for one year ; afterwards attended school at Ann Arbor Law University for one terin, in the winter of 1864-5;
went to Pleasant Hill, Missouri, in the summer of 1865, where he remained for two years. While there he engaged in the practice of law with his brother, Allen M., and owned and edited the Pleasant Hill Union. He came to Moultrie county late in 1866, and lo- cated in Sullivan, where he has continued to reside. During the first winter he taught school, and in the spring purchased a small farm, and for about two years followed farming, teaching during the winter. Was elected superintendent of schools in 1869, which position he held for a term of four years. In 1874 he again em- barked in the mercantile business, which he continued for about three years. He was re-elected superintendent of schools in the fall of 1877, and is the present incumbent. Under his vigorous ad- ministration the schools of Moultrie county are rapidly taking a - prominent position with others in this state. As an educator Mr. Stearns belongs to the progressive school. He has eliminated all old and crude customs, and inaugurated a new system that is more in conformity to the times and theories of advanced thinkers upon school subjects. Politically, he is a democrat; in manners, a pleasant and agrceable gentleman, and of rather a retiring disposi- tion. The number of his friends increase as he becomes better known.
DR. A. R. KELLAR.
DR. KELLAR, one of the oldest physicians of Moultrie county, is a native of Oldham county, Kentucky, and was born on the 16th of December, 1827. His birth-place was eighteen miles from Louis- ville. The Kellar family is of German descent, and became resi- dents of Virginia at an early period. His grandfather, William Kellar, emigrated from Virginia to Tennesseeshortly after the con- clusion of the Revolutionary war. In the year 1795, he moved from Tennessee to Kentucky, settled in Oldham county and was one of the pioneers of that part of the state. Abrahamn H. Kellar, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Tennessee in 1790, and was consequently five years of age, when the family moved to Kentucky. He was raised in Oldham county, and married Nancy J. Hitt, who was born in Fayette county, Kentucky, in the year 1793. Her family came to Kentucky from Virginia. Dr. Kellar was the youngest of a family of eight children, of whom six were sons and two daughters. In the fall of 1832, the family moved to Illinois and settled in what was then Macon, now Moultrie county, about one mile south of the present town of Lovington. In that vicinity Dr. Kellar spent his boyhood. After having obtained an elementary education in the common school, he left home at the age of nineteen and went to Kentucky, where for two years he was a student in Bacon college at Harrodsburg. Returning from Ken- tucky in the year 1847, he began the study of medicine at Sullivan with his brother, Dr. William Kellar, then the only physician in the town. Sullivan was, of course, at that time a place of few in- habitants and little business. During the winter of 1848-9, he at- tented a course of lectures in the Medical Department of the Uni- versity of Louisville. He attended his second course of lectures at the same college in the winter of 1850-51. He had commenced practice in 1849, in the neighborhood of Lovington. For about nine months after his graduation he was preaching as a Christian minister in Moultrie, Shelby and Macon counties.
In February, 1852, he became a resident of Decatur, where he practiced medicine four years. April 14th, 1852, he married Jane E. Cantrill, daughter of William Cantrill one of the old residents of Decatur. In April, 1856, after his brother's death, he moved to Sullivan From 1865 to April, 1875, he was engaged in practicing mc- dicine at Shelbyville He then returned to Sullivan, where he has
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HISTORY OF SHELBY AND MOULTRIE COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
since resided. He is now with one exception the oldest physician in practice in Moultrie county. He has five children : Charles H., Addie E., Edgar H., Lizzie M. and Pearl N. He has always been a sound and consistent Democrat in politics. His first vote for President was cast for Franklin Pierce in 1852. His time has been devoted to his profession, and he has never been ambitious to hold public office. In 1851, he was elected school commissioner of Moultrie county. In 1864, he was the democratic candidate for presidential elector in the seventh congressional district, in which Moultrie county was then included. Since the age of thirteen he has been connected with the Christian church, joining in 1840 the West Okaw church of that denomination, the next to the oldest Christ- ian church within the limits of the state of Illinois. In 1851, he was ordained a minister in the Sullivan Christian church, and from that time at occasional intervals, whenever not conflicting too much with his professional engagements, he has filled the pulpits of different Christian churches of this part of the state. His reputation as a citizen and a physician is well known to the people of Moultrie county.
JAMES KIRKWOOD.
JAMES KIRKWOOD, a view of whose residence in Sullivan town- ship appears on another page, is a native of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. His birth took place on the 6th of April, 1811. His father, William Kirkwood, was born in the north of Ireland in the year 1789. In 1797 the family ,emigrated to America. William Kirkwood was married in Pennsylvania. to Sophia Goshon, who was of German descent. The subject of this sketch was the third child by this marriage. In 1812, his father moved to Frank- lin county, Pennsylvania. Mr. Kirkwood was raised in that part of the Cumberland valley near Chambersburg. He attended the district schools, but his experience with business matters has im. proved his education since reaching years of maturity. His father died when he was thirteen years old. After his father's death he earned his own living. On the 7th of January, 1834, he married Ann Jane I. Young, who was born in Ireland on the 12th of May, 1815. She came to America when she was nine years old. In the fall of 1834, a few months after his marriage, he moved to Ohio, and settled at Hallsville in Ross county. At that time he had no means with which to buy land. He saved money, and in the spring of 1841 purchased, partly on credit, a farm on which he lived till he came to Illinois. He became a resident of Moultrie county in 1857, and in 1859, bought the place on which he now lives, in section seventeen of township thirteen, range five. His farm con- sists of two hundred and fifty-five acres of land. He has had eight
children :- Jane, now the wife of John McCollister and a resident of Missouri ; William Kirkwood, who is in the grain business at Sullivan ; Moses Hiram, who is farming in Sullivan township; Sophia, who married George Dawson and now lives near Hallsville, Ross county, Ohio; James, who died in June, 1979 ; Eliza Ann, who died in Ohio at the age of six years ; Mary Josephine, wife of John W. Woods; and George Wesley Kirkwood who still lives with his father.
In his political views, Mr. Kirkwood is a democrat, and has voted the democratic ticket from 1832, when he supported Jackson for President, except in 1864, when he voted for Lincoln, thinking that he could thus best contribute to the suppression of the rebel- lion. He possesses liberal views on political subjects, and fre- quently votes for the best man for office regardless of politics. He became connected with the United Brethren Church, in Sullivan township, in 1858, shortly after the organization of the church. He is one of the trustees of Pleasant Grove church, of which he is a member. He has been a useful member of the community. During his life he has been a resident of three states,- Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois-and in all of them has endeavored to honestly dic- charge his duties as a neighbor and a citizen. Though he has now reached the age of three-score years and ten, he is still vigorous in mind, and can look back with satisfaction over a well-spent life
C. C. CLARK.
C. C. CLARK, who has been practicing law at Sullivan since 1870, was born in Geauga county, Ohio, August 15, 1845. His father, J. M. P. Clark, was a native of Vermont, and his mother, Charlotte Brainard, of Ohio. Mr. Clark was raised in Geauga county, where he obtained his elementary education. In 1868, he came to Mat- toon and began reading law with his brothers, H. S. Clark, now . member of the State Senate from the thirty-second senatorial district, and A. B. Clark, now residing in Kansas. He attended the Ohio Union and State Law College at Cleveland, from which he gradu- ated in the summer of 1869, and the following September was ad- mitted to the bar in Ohio. In 1870, he came to Sullivan and became associated with John R. Eden and J. Meeker in the practice of law, under the firm name of Eden, Meeker & Clark. Since 1872, the firm has been coniposed of Mr. Eden and Mr. Clark. He was married on the 9th of December, 1872, to Frankie A. Rowe, of Newark, Ohio. From 1872 to 1880, he held the office of prosecu- ting attorney. He is a democrat. He has devoted his attention closely to the legal profession, and occupies a leading position among the members of the Moultrie county bar.
FARM RESIDENCE OF AMOS SHORT, SEC. 7, T.13, R.S.
FARM RESIDENCE OF W. A . SHORT. SEC. 7. 7. 13, R.5.
FARM RESIDENCE OF WILLIS SHORT , SEC. 7, T. 13, R.5, SULLIVAN TP. MOULTRIE CO.ILL,
MOAWEQUA TOWNSHIP.
(SHELBY COUNTY.)
HE pioneer of what is now known as Moawequa Township, was Jacob Traughber. He settled south of the Long Grove Branch of section 19, within about one hundred yards of the present boundary line of Christian and Shelby counties, and three-fourths of a mile of the Macon county line. He was a native of North Carolina, and emigrated to Illinois, first locating in Sangamon county, where he lived two years and then moved to this county in March, 1831. . He built a log cabin, improved a farm, afterwards entered the land, and resided here until his death, which occurred in 1868, at the age of 71 years. His family, consisted of a wife and five children ; four of the children live near the old homestead. Richard, the eldest, lives in Arkansas. The aged mother makes her home with one of her sons, who resides in the south edge of Macon county. She was a native of Virginia. Traughber was of German descent. Isaac Vice, William Morris, and the two Stewart brothers emigrated from Kentucky, and settled here in the latter- part of 1831, at Long Grove near the head of the branch. Most of them afterward removed to Iowa. Frank Armstrong settled on the place Mr. Vice improved. William Gregory settled on the south part of section 34; the place is now owned by E. M. Doyle. Joseph Hall came in 1830, and located on section 36, where he lived about two years, and then sold out to Henry Armstrong. William and John Drake, two brothers, settled south of the present site of the village of Moawequa in 1830. They lived here a few years and then moved away. James Worsham settled on section 31, where H. A. Pratt now lives, in 1840. He resided there until 1854, when he was taken sick with the typhoid fever and died. His wife died the same day, and the same spring five or six of his children died of the same disease.
The first school-house erected, was a log building, and stood a quarter of a mile north of the present town of Moawequa. It was erected in 1836.
The first preaching was at the residence of Michael Snyder, and regular preaching was held at his home for about ten years, princi- pally by the Methodist denomination.
Other old settlers were the Atterberrys. David and Andrew Sinon ; they resided in the eastern part of the township. John and William Lamb located in the northern part, near the Macon county line.
John M. Friedley, one of the enterprising and successful men of Moawequa, is a native of Seneca county, New York. He located in this county in 1847, and by his indefatigable energy and perse- verance has done much to advance and improve this section.
In 1856, Mr. Friedley purchased of Charles Cornell the " Round Grove farm," where he carried on farming quite extensively for se- veral years. The place is now owned by James G. Stewart. In the year 1832, Mr. Freeman entered about 2800 acres of land in the center, and west part of what is now this township. In consequence this tract of land was not settled until after 1856. This tract is owned in parcels by John Freeman, James Freeman, Jacob John- son, James W. Hughes, James Gavin, Wm. Notbrook, Thomas Hudson, Mrs. Beudsley and the Elledge heirs. A small portion is owned by other persons.
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